(Chem. Mater.) Recyclable and Photothermal Free-Standing Adhesive Tape Toward Reconfigurable Soft Actuators
writer：Huang, S.; Sun, J.; Bisoyi, H. K.; Tao, Y.; Wang, J.; Xu, Y.; Huang, Y.; Wang, M.; Yang, H.*; Li, Q.
keywords：adhesive
source：期刊
specific source：Chemistry of Materials, 2023, 35, 3705-3712.
Issue time：2023年
Soft actuators have shown
great potential in soft robotic technologies, where the complex functions
usually originate from fundamental components with simple motion mode.
Therefore, how to convert the simple motion mode to complex motion modes
becomes a vital challenge. In contrast to rigid actuators where the simple
motion mode can be converted to complex motion modes by gearing systems and
transmission devices, manufacturing assembled soft actuators by splicing
different functional building blocks has been considered as an effective
strategy. However, most of the assembled soft actuators cannot be reconstructed
and modified once they have been fabricated because of the limitation of the
adhesion methods, making these devices unmodifiable and unreconfigurable,
typically thrown away after a single use. Endowing the assembled materials with
well-designed functions that the components do not have by designing functional
adhesives is also important. Considering that free-standing adhesive tapes can
have the features of onsite and repeatable installation, and can be integrated
with designed functions and shapes, devising assembled actuators using adhesive
tape appears to be a feasible approach. Herein, we develop a free-standing
functional adhesive tape based on polydisulfides containing the photoresponsive
azobenzene moieties (PDS-Azo), and utilize the tape to fabricate reconfigurable
and spliceable soft actuators. The chemical structures of PDS-Azo tape are
carefully designed to obtain optimized adhesion performances with photothermal
functions. Moreover, the tape could show reversible adhesion triggered by
either heating or light irradiation. It is demonstrated that the adhesive tape
can be utilized to assemble different functional building blocks to develop
smart soft devices with reconfigurability